One of the major problems in taking prescribed daily medications emanates from patients having to take multiple doses of medications, vitamins, supplements, etc. at various dosing periods during the day. A principal concern is determining whether all medications have been taken in compliance with the daily regimen.
The fear of taking improper dosages can be particularly acute in the elderly, many of whom have some degree of mental dementia and can easily be confused as to whether they have taken all of their medications at the correct time. Some patients have difficulty sorting out the medications prior to taking them and taking the medication in a timely manner. Providing medications to elderly, disabled or incapacitated individuals can also be complicated because one caregiver may oversee the medication of many patients.
One solution to the problem of taking multiple medications is to pre-package the multiple medications so that users can take the pre-packaged medications at a predetermined time. Generally, these methods of pre-packaging medications are targeted to patients that may lack maturity or mental capacity to take the correct medications at the correct time. For example, young children in a school or campground, and elderly individuals in elder care centers, or nursing homes are target groups for the pre-packaging of medications. Some of the pre-packaged medications are placed in a small plastic bag, which may be easily misplaced. Other pre-packaged medications are placed in sealed cups that are difficult to open.
Furthermore, pre-packaged multiple medications are difficult to order because the pre-packaging of multiple medications is a specialty service that has not been automated. The manual ordering systems are expensive to administer because they lack automation. Therefore, there is a need for a highly automated ordering system and process that is simple and cost effective for a patient or a pharmacist to use. An automated system and method for receiving orders would make it substantially easier to process a multiple prescription order, which would in turn make the process much more cost effective.
Although multiple prescription filling systems are available, e.g. the McKesson PACMED system, these systems have limited labeling capabilities. Additionally, these filling systems do not have procedures to verify the multiple prescription order before filling a pouch or cup. Furthermore, these filling systems fail to provide a method for assembling a multiple prescription order that can be easily transported and administered, so that the multiple medications can be taken at the appropriate time. Further still, these filling systems fail to verify that each pouch in a filled prescription order has the appropriate medication.